I could be wrong but I think KingFisher is more then capable of taking down a force 3 water spirit.Not sure if unarmed combat is going to help though. Have no points in astral combat but have high mental stats.

Fighting on the astral plane is really different than on the physical one. You can use unarmed if you are perceiving (assuming you have some magical means of hitting, like killing hands or a touch based spell) because you are still using your physical stats for everything, but if you are projecting, you use astral combat. Spells work mostly normally though so you can use those. Also you could try banishing him with your conjuration skill (which is probably easiest). I dont think the spirit can beat her barring exceptional luck, but it could hurt her.

Note that spirits can't die. They just get disrupted and forced to their home plane for a time. It isn't pleasant for them, but they can come back and are generally not pleased to be disrupted.

What I'm trying to do is to get used to all the different rules that I need to know.So I tried summoning spirits in the park for good IC reasons. The con skill check to avoid arrest likewise.

Since I haven't cast a spell or gone astral, they're next to try out. I'm trying to use them in places where a failed roll is less likely to result in a spectacularly bad event being triggered. So hopefully this isn't annoying the other players or the GM.

I get it and this is your time to do it. I am giving you your options. For a weak spirit like this, given your current skills, I would say banishing is the easiest method. roll your (astral) initiative, then make a banishing check or throw spells at it and hope for the best.

Banishing is essentially the same as conjuring mechanically. You roll the same check, and the same drain. You just are removing favors instead of gaining them. He is currently free, so he doesn't have favors. instead you are removing edge (which all spirits have equal to their force). Once edge/favors go down to 0, they are disrupted.

Note that if you were to banish a spirit that you wanted to gain favors from, you could then do so afterward with a summoning check, even if it is a spirit type you would not normally be able to summon. Not necessarily relevant here, but good to know in the future.

KingFisher wrote:So hopefully this isn't annoying the other players or the GM.

Not at all! I've enjoyed reading your RP while catching up on the story so far.

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Because we have 3 adepts in the group, just for completeness I wanted to put the full rules for fighting spirits (including adepts).

MANIFESTED SPIRITSManifested spirits are dual-natured, which means they can attack (and be attacked by) all astral, physical and dual-natured foes.

Otherwise, they act like any other critter, though they usually have Immunity to Normal Weapons critter power. This means, against regular dakka-dakka [guns], they get double their force as hardened armor which is very effective (see SR5:Core pg 397-398). Weapon foci, spells and the adept Killing Hands power can bypass this resistance. Also, Satou's quality "Spirit Warrior" lets him strip all powers from the spirit for 2 turns after he damages them or succeeds on a banishment roll to remove 1 or more services (for the princely sum of 20K at gen, it better be good). I'm hoping this means, he will be helpful to the party vs. spirits.

ASTRAL SPIRITSAstral spirits are creatures of the astral plane and cannot affect creatures who have no astral connection (but a Perception[4] test lets mudanes feel the "chill" of their presence [SR5:Core pg 314])

There are several options for battling spirits in the Astral, in the following order:

Run away before it sees you (really - this is like facing a shark underwater with a knife...sure it's a nice knife, but...)

Spellcasting as normal (any mana-based spell works straight up...others don't work at all)

Kite them to an astrally perceiving adept with killing hands or a weapon focus

Astral combat (with WILL+Astral Combat to hit and CHA as damage) if you happen to have had a lot of skill points left over at gen (pro tip: no one has this...especially with these skill rules)

The real "fun" part is when a spirit is waiting for you in the Astral when you start perceiving...you get immediately attacked by something with Force*2 attack dice and Force to Force+2 damage which you soak with only your Willpower. Not pleasant, even for dwarves.

Moral #1 : if you're facing a spirit in the astral, run. If you have to fight, Mana Bolt will get you further than Astral Combat unless you have a huge weapon focus and a lot of skill points and Willpower. Adepts who can astrally perceive can use unarmed combat but they should watch out for the ambush as the shift to dual-natured and shouldn't even think about it without Killing Hands (and maybe also Spirit Claw/Ram).

SPIRIT SUMMONING TIMELINESequence of events when a mage decides to ruin your day.

Then, they must be ordered (via simple action) to manifest and attack.

After that, the spirit must take a complex action to manifest.

Moral #2 : This allows mundane creatures time to execute the First Law of Shadowrunning, "Always geek the mage first," before the nasty nasty spirit is upon them (once the mage is unconscious, the spirit goes back to whence it came).

That is not necessarily true. Mana bolt only does damage equal to the number of net hits you make, limited by force. So if you roll 12 dice and the target rolls nothing for willpower, you are probably going to do around 3-4 damage on average. Best case scenario is 6 damage if you roll really lucky and their willpower is complete crap, assuming a force 6 casting with no reagents or other funny business.

Astral combat damage is based on your charisma. With kingfisher the 8 charisma elf, that means base of 8 damage, plus whatever net hits you make. If you have 1 net hit, that's 9 damage. Kingfisher has a decent willpower, but no astral combat, so unfortunately that means 5 dice and no edge. A force 3 spirit would have 6 dice and his damage is only 3. He has a very slight edge in hitting, but with a little luck, kingfisher could knock him out in one or two hits. If she had even 1 point in astral combat, it would be a clobbering because she could throw edge into a hit and destroy him outright, or even if she didn't, the vast difference in damage would put the fight heavily in her favor.